Technically their membership’s been suspended, subject to reinstatement if/when Putin starts to play nice, but don’t hold your breath. What makes the Crimean invasion ominous isn’t its strategic significance but what it signals about Russia’s commitment to a confrontational posture with the west. The tenor of Kremlin propaganda makes compromise impossible: The Nazis are now […]

Later today, the G-7 will meet on the sidelines of a nuclear summit in the Netherlands to figure out a coordinated response to the Russian annexation of Crimea. Barack Obama pledged that Russia would suffer “a cost” for its “actions” and that the leaders of Europe and the US are united in that effort. So […]

Ahem, excuse me … armed pro-Russian “activists,” according to the BBC. Just hours after Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula, the Ukrainian naval base came under attack, and the chief of their navy is reportedly a prisoner of these “activists”: Pro-Russian activists, some armed, have stormed the HQ of Ukraine’s navy in the Crimean city of […]

Will the West get serious about sanctions on Russia, now that Vladimir Putin has completed his seizure of Crimea? We may soon find out … relatively soon, anyway. The US , Japan, and European nations already had a nuclear summit on the schedule next week, and Barack Obama has now requested a side meeting of […]

The US and EU did some saber-rattling yesterday over the Russian invasion of Crimea, but few took seriously the notion that either would go to war over Ukraine. John Kerry warned that “all options are on the table” yesterday before flying to Kyiv, but the US has no strategic or military interest in Ukraine, let […]